March 31, 2015

Following an investigation which revealed attempts to manipulate the peer review process, medical and scientific publisher BioMed Central has retracted 43 articles that were published based on fabricated peer reviewers, the publisher announced in a statement on its blog.

“The apparent intention was to deceive editors and positively influence the outcome of peer review by suggesting fabricated reviewers,” Elizabeth Moylan, Senior Editor for Research Integrity at BioMed Central, wrote on the blog. “Given the scale of the deception, we alerted the Committee on Publication Ethics, and a number of other publishers.”